If you choose a military or scout or merchant career for your character you have a wealth of options to choose from... but until now if you have decided that he is (or at least was before taking up adventuring) a Scholar or an 'ordinary' Citizen, you were a bit limited, at least as far as rules went, for what you could use to create your background - and that all-important skill set.

First, though, there's the question of education. Before you even start your career proper your character might wish to attend university. This replaces your first term in a career, and like any path you need to roll successfully to get in. If you fail, you have to choose something else or even submit to the draft. Characters who'd like to get some real-world experience first may take a couple of terms in a career before going to university - this could be an opportunity for a career change if you have, say, served a couple of terms in the military, then go to study before embarking on a quite different life thereafter.

Graduation confers a few benefits such as a bonus on entry rolls to certain careers and the option to make a commission roll if entering a military career. There is also the option to attend medical school, which takes another term but sets you up as a qualified medical doctor. Rather disappointingly, there isn't an option here to attend graduate school and 'pile it higher and deeper' to gain a PhD. There are several tables to help you write your character's backstory, the usual 'lifepath' events... and these, of course, crop out throughout the book as each career option is explored.

Next comes a detailed exploration of citizen careers. It covers just about every civilian occupation that isn't a merchant, a noble or an entertainer. Here is the backbone of civilisation, the people who make ordinary everyday things happen. There are three main areas: artisans (who make things), funcionaries (who administrate) and 'pillars of society' - these last include politicians, union leaders, diplomats, activists and more; those who feel that their ideas can make a difference to the common good. Each area subdivides enabling you to create a whole range of backgrounds from day-wage labourer to an architect designing whole cities (or starships) or the next revolutionary computer chip, the individual who runs a city to the fellow who comes to fix the plumbing, a rabble-rousing agitator to a lawyer or diplomat or an elected representative... just about anything you can think of doing can be covered by the rules in this section.

We then move on to the scholar careers. For some strange reason, the assumption is made that scholars study science of some kind... I'm sitting in a university writing this review in my lunch break as it happens, and even if I'm in Computer Science we have all sorts here from fine arts and history and languages through sciences and a large business school; and they'd all regard themselves as scholars! Anyway, there are various options from those who work in laboratories (or libraries) to field researchers who get out into the real world to pursue their studies to the lone genius following his ideas in isolation. Even here, oddly enough, you cannot gain a PhD but if you take the lecturer path far enough you might gain the title of Professor.

Then there's an interesting half-way house between Citizen and Scholar - the Teacher. It's a whole new career path for those whose burning desire is to pass on information to others as guru or instructor. We next come to mustering out benefits, handled in the same way as for any career, although there are some special options depending on which of these careers have been followed.

Next is a discussion of 'Scholar-Travellers' - how to use that scholar character as an adventurer and how to turn a member of another career into a scholar, perhaps later in life when he's ready to reflect on the world around him rather than react to it. This is followed by matters important to any scholar's heart: funding and publishing ('Publish or Perish' as they say in academia!) complete with the necessary rules to make it all happen. Scholars are funded by bodies given the catch-all title of Societies and Fellowships, these can be anything from wealthy companies or individuals to full-blown universities. Some examples are provided to help you get going, use them as is or as templates and inspiration for creating your own.

For those who want to play them out in detail, there's a complete breakdown of the research process complete with the necessary game mechanics - like a lot of Traveller, you can have a lot of fun playing through these on your own creating a rich background for a character who may never see 'play' in the accepted role-playing sense of the world. Again there are examples which could be used as the underpinnings for a game based around scholarly pursuits, or to inspire your own.

There are more options too: special advantages (and disadvantages) of having exception Education or Intelligence scores, rules for gifted amateurs, citizen options, a whole bunch of rules about teaching (and learning), the development of networks - a citizen advantage that helps you build up a network of contacts wherever you go - and more.

A thoroughly fun and detailed work that helps to round out the peoples of your Traveller universe with all sorts of different folk... if nothing else, something for the military to defend and the merchants to sell to!

I am very glad that Mongoose had done the MINOR RACES sourcebooks .It gives a new depth to the races that most players might not play or now gives them a reason to play them ! I am looking forward to the next MINOR RACE book !

The pdf couldn't be decompressed or opened by any means. I tried mutiple programs, downloaded some new ones to try to get it to open, it didn't. It's sitting on my computer and in my google drive and I can't open it. I wish they'd just mailed me a copy. Wasted my money!

Skilfully mixing real-world history with the background of the Deus Vult campaign setting, this is the story of Rouen: trading centre and capital of Normandy, visited from Scandinavian lands as well as from Europe... and with strongholds of the Order as well. Based there or just visiting, there's plenty of atmospheric detail to allow the city to come to life for your players.

History, citizens, their amusements, the appearance of the city and the locations within it - they're all here, painted vividly and atmospherically. Naturally the cathedral is described in detail, complete with sufficient material to allow you to describe services even if you are not familiar with the mediaeval Mass. At every turn are notes which can be used to provide incidental events that heighten the role-play and give the feeling of really being there.

Of course, as well as the regular merchants, clerics, nobles and everyday working folk, there are others. An occultist hidden away here, the Order's Preceptory there... and a thriving Jewish community, not to mention a trapped demon. The practice of Medicine - as a science divorced from clerical healing that is - is in its infancy, but there is at least one noted Doctor in town, with some fascinating notes on early medicine and the advice given to doctors in how to conduct themselves.

If you have not already had quite a few ideas, there's a whole chapter of encounters to use when the party is in Rouen. Some will provide but passing diversion, others are good for a side-adventure if not a whole scenario in their own right should you so wish. Several important citizens are provided in full detail, including stat blocks - allies, patrons, enemies, chance encounters: again, whatever suits the needs of your plot or party actions. There is also a Bestiary section with an array of new creatures to introduce into the mix.

Finally, there are a couple of adventures in and around Rouen that you may wish to run. Both provide plenty of interest and excitement, with investigation as well as combat required to resolve them.

The one thing that's lacking is a map of the city, although there's a sketch map of the surrounding area in one of the adventures. That lack and the odd typo a good proof-read ought to have caught are the only flaws in a fine city to add to the alternate history that is Deus Vult.

For a 30USD PDF I'd prefer this be self-contained and not require the Traveller sourcebook, but ...

2300AD is easily my favorite Sci-Fi setting. I still have (and still have fond memories of) the 2300AD Boxed set from 1988. Just as I think Mongoose has done an excellent job with Traveller, they've gone and done it again with 2300AD.

This could be a great product and would rate 5 stars, if only the artist could draw. The deck plans are great, the illustrations are crap. Most of the vessels are classic traveller ships which have been published ages ago, mostly with the then ubiquitious Keith illustrations.

In this case I had trouble to identify the painted vessels until I looked them up in my print collection, to get a notion whatthe ship really looked.

Very slovenly done. Same stats for the 88 of the Tiger (88/L56) and Kingtiger/Jagdpanther (88/L71) and 75 of PzIV (75/L48) and Panther (75/L70). The Jagdpanzer IV shows the picture of a Jagdpanther. I you make a supplement based on historical data, PLEASE be a bit more accurate in your research.

The art work is crap. Sorry but this is what helps set the pace and feel of the game.
It had no connection to the past art of the game, too much FANTASY looking, not very Science Fiction looking.

And the ship floor plans are a nice touch, adding even the fighter. BUT they changed too much and non for the better.

This is first impression once I looked at it. Now I have not read the content, its surface glance. (It looks like the mechanics of the game match up with the old....)
BUT this is often a indicator of if it would get a person to pickup the game and run with it.

The character sheet is TOO busy, I liked the clean simple form from the Classic Traveller. It s like who ever wrote the book and commissioned the art has no idea what Traveller is.

I am happy it is not the crappy Steve Jackson version.... but it has so much wrong:

Poorly organized. Its hard to tell when one section ends and another begins.

Really great. Nothing here is necessary; everything here must be what someone is dying for. My favorite things: new design is vivid and clear, especially on my iPad; well-worked out rules for describing large forces and conducting elegant mass battles; chargen additions are tight and evocative; mass list of previously published ironmongery gives as many neato blast toys as you could ask for without having to slog through the tedious descriptions and hideous art of the central supply catalogue, which I now will never feel the need to buy; enough details and examples to make playing a proper mercenary campaign, or indeed a regular old planetside war, easy and desirable; little but important rule fixes like in skill categories; did I say new design? Please keep this new design, which I dig.

I got this one in print from a local store and was psyched to see that I could also get it in PDF! Let's talk about 2300 AD and why the Traveller system is a perfect match for it. Mongoose has done a great job of bringing this gem forward and it's a terrific purchase.

Now, I played 2300 AD back in the late 1980s/early 90s. It was created to be a bridge between Twilight 2000 - a post-limited-nuclear-war military adventure game set in the far future of the year 2000 - and Traveller - a far-future libertarian science fiction game in the Golden Age of SF style. It posits a world where still-recognizable nation-states colonize and vie for control over stars near Earth. No one-world government in 2300 AD, intrigues and politics make these first few steps into the universe fraught with adventure and danger.

The upside to Traveller has always been its flexibility - with its simple system you can be mercenaries, or on a diplomatic mission, or criminals and slimeballs. But it's been fairly rare to see a fully fleshed out campaign model for Traveller. Perhaps this is because it has always attracted the do-it-yourself mindset, just as the characters in the typical Traveller campaign scrimp and scrounge whatever they can to make their way in the universe.

However, 2300 AD gives a much more specific game world, fleshing out its universe in more detail. Instead of a vast galaxy, the characters will be visiting and coping with problems on only a couple of dozen nearby stars. Events on one will propagate and cause consequences throughout the game world. No longer will the most boring Traveller adventure outcome, "we fly away from everything we just did" be a feasible way to avoid the decision-and-consequence chain that makes RPGs and stories good. The universe is not that big in 2300 AD.

That's not to say that 2300 AD lacks flexibility. There are many pages of campaign structures and ideas, from military units to spies to explorers.

There are two areas that 2300 AD could improve in, one that is general to colonial games and one that is specific to this game. Specifically, 2300 AD could improve its usefulness in PDF form by providing pages specifically for player consumption - the hex maps are a great start here, but why not do what original Traveller did and have information about planets and colonies in a form that can simply be printed out and given to the players to consult just as their characters did? Instead, information that could be accessible to characters is jumbled in with commentary and side notes for the GM. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it limits the usefulness of the text for a Traveler group used to the classic "one paragraph entry in the computer book" style of deeply in-character play.

More generally, there are lots of games that have a colonial setup that pretty solidly fail to acknowledge the moral ambiguity (or even outright evils) of colonization. Even in 2300 AD, where there are a few other alien species in the "near" stars that are the target of Earthly nations' ambitions, there just isn't any mention that in certain circumstances the players are likely to be playing the bad guys. The game does a great job of setting up a situation that evokes the age of colonization and the rivalries that spread and changed during that time frame, but doesn't acknowledge that the modern player (hopefully) has a bit more awareness of the questions and problems raised by colonization over time. Also, do characters in this setting feel that way? Is this a political question at all? 2300 AD more or less skips this whole issue. So do many other games with colonial setups, so I guess it's no worse than them. However, I'd like to see games do better in this regard.

Those are really my only two critiques of the book . The simple Traveller system has been well-examined elsewhere so just trust me when I say 1) it's solid and 2) it's extremely extensible - you can pull in careers, equipment or even new aliens and locations from Traveler supplements if you like and have no systemic problems doing so. 2300 AD presents a remarkably complete game, including things like cybernetics, genetic modification, psionic abilities and a very thorough gazetteer that should keep you going for a long time.

The original GDW 2300 AD did a good job of showing the path between the postwar Twilight 2000 and the freedom-focused Traveller and what it would be like to mesh these two ideas. As a result 2300 AD was a vivid and exciting setting for adventure. Mongoose has preserved that core recipe (though it says that it no longer is related to the Original Traveller Universe in the introduction, the underlying concepts remain the same) and strengthened it with its updated Traveller system. The layout is good and the PDF doesn't have nonsense like background images to keep you from printing what you need. (There's a few odd diagrams and art pieces that suddenly pop into color here and there, but it's not harmful to the layout.)

I really like this Second Edition Mercenary book. I have not had the chance to read every section such as the mass combat rules but most of what I’ve seen I like. The Art is much better than some of the other Mongoose books because it looks more realistic rather than like cartoon characters. I like the section on pre-military college or military academy rules. There are also some expanded combat rules that may be useful such as panic fire, blind fire and indirect fire. There is good information on armor piercing and using forward observers. The book has quite a few new vehicles, equipment and weapons of course. I really love the section on constructing fortresses and this is all just the tip of the iceberg. This is more like a Merc book should be than the first edition is.

An excellent introduction to the system. Covers all the basics that you need to know, as well as helps set the mood for what the games are to be like. Not only is it worth getting for the GM as a quick reference, I would even go as far as suggest that you get one for each of the new players the GM has in their game.

I think this is a great little product that greatly enhances the suppliment 5-6 design sequence. Now it is possible to design land dredoughts and behemoths! I like this option as the system up until that puont seemd a bit limited. My main criticism is that this supplement seems to switch across to a system that looks a lot like their High Guard system which is used for large starships. There is no explanation why or how rhis dovetales into the book 5-6 system. This may be confusing to some people as there seems to be a lack of adequate explanation.

Overall, a fairly good effort Mongoose. I look forward to seeing more of your good work. Pleasw keep it up.

I wanted to see this topic covered well, since (as for a Star Wars game, perhaps) it has a considerable influence in defining the nature of serious ground combat in the setting. An expansion was very much needed for the brief, though descriptive, characterisation in the core setting book.

It provides a good spread of classic vehicles in their development over time, with many illustrations, which are very helpful to grasp the style and nature of each one. Actual size and mass figures might have helped with visualisation though they'd only occasionally be required for game use.

I found the division between "hardsuits" and "combat walkers", that is, more and less humanoid-shaped waldoed vehicles, more corrosive to the uniqueness of the setting than useful. A ground-up design system presents a lot of tables to digest before getting to examples and combat usage, considering that combat walkers are standard models and not commonly built from scratch or heavily customised, and could have been placed later, I feel. Design principles and discussions of how combat walkers are employed could have spent a bit of time on concepts before delving into rules terms and references to (much less criticism of) other rulebooks. Generally it could have been more directed to examine how these classes of equipment fit into this setting and assumed less familiarity with what they are and do in other universes.

The reason I picked up this book was to get the weapons chart so I could have fun with High Frontier (the aerospace version of the game). Looking over just the weapons chart I see a key problem. The stats for combat and construction are mixed together. If they had designed the chart so one page was the combat stats, and the other page for construction, that would have helped. I went ahead and made a sheet like that for my personal use (each page had the weapons name, one page had all the construction stats, the other had all the combat stats).

The dark text on the black background also meant that in order to read anything, I had to highlight or zoom in to see the text. When you have to zoom to 300% to read the text, that means there was little editorial review.

This product could be made so much better if the publisher would just change the background to something lighter, with dark text. The light background would at least lower print costs, and the dark text would make it easier to read. As it is, the only way to use the book would be to do a text copy from each page into a separate document.